By Brigid Francis-Devine
8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Summary
1
What is the gender pay gap?
2 How big is the gender pay gap?
3 Age and the gender pay gap
4 Occupation
5 Industry
6 Public and private sector
7 Region and country
8 Higher-paid and lower-paid employees

commonslibrary.parliament.uk

Number 7068

The gender pay gap

Contributing Authors
Patrick Brione, Pay gap reporting policy, 2.3
Image Credits
Working women technology. Licensed under CC0 Licence – no copyrightrequired. Image cropped.
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Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Contents
Summary

4

1

What is the gender pay gap?

72

How big is the gender pay gap?

92.1

The gender pay gap and hours worked

9

2.2

How has the gap changed over time?

10

2.3

Employers reporting gender pay gap data

113

Age and the gender pay gap

14

3.1

Motherhood and the gender pay gap

15

3.2

Pay gap varies by generation and education

18

3.3

Where women work

19

4

Occupation

20

5

Industry

24

6

Public and private sector

26

7Region and country

28

8Higher-paid and lower-paid employees

30

3Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Summary

The gender pay gap measures the difference between average (median)hourly earnings of men and women, usually shown by the percentage men
earn more than women.
This briefing provides statistics on the size of the gender pay gap in the UK
and looks at some of the reasons why there is a gender pay gap.
Note that figures for 2020 especially, but also 2021, should be treated withsome caution. Some people were on furlough with reduced pay and figures for2020 were particularly affected by disruptions to the collection of data frombusinesses.

How big is the gender pay gap in the UK?
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), median hourly pay for
full-time employees was 7.7% less for women than for men in April 2023,
while median hourly pay for part-time employees was 3.3% higher for
women than for men (figures exclude overtime pay). The median is the point
at which half of employees earn more and half earn less. It is regarded abetter measure of pay of the ‘typical’ employee than taking an average.
Because a larger proportion of women are employed part-time, and parttime workers tend to earn less per hour, the gender pay gap for all employees
is considerably larger than the full-time and part-time gaps. Median pay for
all employees was 14.3% less for women than for men in April 2023.
The full-time pay gap has been getting smaller since 1997 and the overall pay
gap has also decreased over the period. The part-time pay gap has generally
remained small and negative, with women earning more than men on
average.

4

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

The gender pay gap has decreased over the past twenty years% difference in median hourly pay excluding overtime for men and women employees
35%
30%
25%

All employees

20%
15%

Full-time

10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
1997

Part-time
1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

2019

2021

2023

Dashed lines indicate breaks in the series in 2004, 2006 and 2011

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings time series of selected estimates – Table 6

Why is there a gender pay gap?
The size of the gender pay gap depends on several factors, including:5•Age: There is little difference in median hourly pay for male andfemale full-time employees aged in their 20s and 30s, but a
substantial gap emerges among full-time employees aged 40 andover. This links to parenthood - the gap between male and female
hourly earnings grows gradually but steadily in the years after parents
have their first child.

•

Occupation: The gap tends to be smaller for occupation groups wherea larger proportion of employees are women;•

Industry: The pay gap is largest in the financial and insurance
industry, and smallest in the accommodation and food services
industry;•

Public and private sector: For full-time workers, the pay gap isslightly smaller in the public sector than the private sector. There is anegligible gender pay gap for part-time workers in the private sector,
which contrasts with a large part-time pay gap in the public sector;•

Region and nation: The full-time gender pay gap is highest in theSouth East and London and negative in Northern Ireland;•

Pay: The highest earners have a larger pay gap than the lowest
earners.

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Gender pay gap reporting
Since 2017/18, public and private sector employers with 250 or more
employees have been required annually to publish data on the gender pay
gap within their organisations. They must report the data to government, whopublish it.
In 2022/23, 79% of reporting employers stated that median hourly pay was
higher for men than for women in their organisation, while 13% of employers
stated median hourly pay was higher for women. 8% stated that medianhourly pay was the same for women as for men.

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Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

1

What is the gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap
The gender pay gap is generally defined as the difference between the medianhourly earnings of men and of women, as a percentage of men’s earnings.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) defines the gender pay gap as the gap
between the median hourly earnings, excluding overtime, of men and women:•••

The median is the point at which half of employees earn more and halfearn less. It is preferred to the mean (simple average) as a bettermeasure of pay of the ‘typical’ employee; otherwise, results may beaffected by a small number of people on very high levels of pay.
Overtime is excluded because men work more overtime than women.
Hourly earnings are used so that results are not affected by differences inhours worked by men and women.

Median hourly pay offers a useful comparison of men’s and women’s
earnings, but it is too broad to be a measure of the differences in rates of pay
for similar jobs and does not take account of the different employment
characteristics of men and women, such as the amount they work.
In particular, the gender pay gap looks very different depending on whether
we look at the gap among all employees, full-time employees only or parttime employees only, as discussed in section 2. Women are much more likely
than men to work part-time and part-time employees tend to have lower pay
and work in different roles to full-time employees.
Since the overall gap is strongly dependent on these differences between
part-time and full-time employees, analysis often focuses on full-time andpart-time employees separately (as does much of this briefing). However, thereasons women are more likely to work part time are often integral tounderstanding gender pay differences, so the overall gender pay gap is still avaluable comparison.
It is important to note there is a difference between the gender pay gap andequal pay. Unlike the gender pay gap, which concerns the difference inaverage pay between men and women in an organisation, equal pay isconcerned with difference in pay between specific workers who do like work,
work rates as equivalent or work of equal value. The Women and Equalities
Committee’s report, Gender Pay Gap, explains that while unequal pay is a
cause of the pay gap, there are also other contributing factors. It says:

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Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap“The causes of the gender pay gap are complex and varied. Directdiscrimination plays a part in women’s lower wages, particularly for older
women who entered the labour market on less equal terms to men andwho may face dual discrimination on the grounds of age and gender.
However, structural factors are the key cause of the gender pay gap.
These include occupational segregation; the part-time pay penalty;
women’s disproportionate responsibility for unpaid caring; and women’s
concentration in low-paid, highly feminised sectors.” 1

1

8House of Commons, Women and Equalities Committee, Gender Pay Gap, Second report of session
2016/16, 16 March 2016

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

2

How big is the gender pay gap?

2.1

The gender pay gap and hours worked

The gender pay gap
for all employees
was 14.3% in 2023.

Median hourly pay for full-time employees was 7.7% less for women than formen in April 2023, while median hourly pay for part-time employees was 3.3%
higher for women than for men (figures exclude overtime pay).

The full-time pay
gap was 7.7%.

Because a larger proportion of women are employed part-time, and parttime workers tend to earn less per hour, the gender pay gap for all employees
is considerably larger than the full-time and part-time gaps. Median pay for
all employees was 14.3% less for women than for men in April 2023. 2

The part-time pay
gap was -3.3%(women earnedmore).

This reflects the fact that part-time workers tend to earn less than full-timeworkers and women are more likely to work part-time: in April to June 2023,
37% of female employees were working part-time compared to 13% of male
employees. 3
Median hourly pay for full-time employees in April 2023 was £17.40 (excluding
overtime), compared with £12.07 for part-time employees. 4

Employees by gender and working pattern
Q2 2023, millions, seasonally adjusted

Men full-time

12.6

Women fulltime

8.9

Women parttime
Men part-time

5.1

1.8

Source: Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey – table EMP01

2
3

4

9

Office for National Statistics, Gender pay gap in the UK: 2022, 1 November 2023
Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey – table EMP01. These figures are seasonallyadjusted – this means that they have been adjusted to remove changes that happen at the sametime each year.
Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, via Nomis

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

2.2

How has the gap changed over time?
Data during the coronavirus pandemic
Figures for 2020, especially, and 2021 should be treated with caution,
because:••some people were on furlough with reduced pay
figures for 2020 were particularly affected by disruptions to datacollection from businesses.

Pay statistics for 2020 relate to the pay period that includes 22 April 2020,
when around 8.8 million employees were furloughed under the Coronavirus
Job Retention Scheme.
Gender pay gap statistics for 2021 relate to the pay period that includes 21
April 2021, when around 3.7 million employees were furloughed.
Estimates for pay include pay for people on furlough, based on their usual
hours of work. A slightly higher proportion of men than women were
furloughed with reduced pay in April 2020, but by April 2021, the proportions
were much the same. For both men and women, most of these employees
were in the lowest-paying jobs.
The Library briefing, Coronavirus: Impact on the labour market discusses theeffect of the pandemic on women in the labour market.
The gender pay gap for full-time employees has been gradually decreasing
since 1997. Over the same period, the part-time gender pay gap has stayedsmall or negative (meaning that men earn less than women).
The proportion of full-time employees who are women increased between
1997 and 2023, from 36% to 41%. At the same time the share of part-time
employees who are men increased, from 16% in 1997 to 26% in 2023. 5 Thesechanges have led to a decrease in the overall gender pay gap.

5

10

Office for National Statistics, Labour Force Survey – table EMP01. Data at April-June.

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

The gender pay gap has decreased over the past twenty years% difference in median hourly pay excluding overtime for men and women employees
35%
30%
25%

All employees

20%
15%

Full-time

10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
1997

Part-time
1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

2019

2021

2023

Dashed lines indicate breaks in the series in 2004, 2006 and 2011

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings time series of selected estimates – Table 6

2.3
Large employers are
required to reportgender pay gap
information for theircompany since
2017/18

Employers reporting gender pay gap data
Since 2017/18, public and private sector employers with 250 or more
employees have been required to publish data on the gender pay gap within
their organisation. They must report the data to government, who publish it.
The figures in this section are based on that data.
More than 10,000 employers reported data each year since 2017, except for2019. 6 Due to the coronavirus outbreak, employers did not have to report theirgender pay gap information for 2019. 7
In 2022/23, 79% of reporting employers stated that median hourly pay was
higher for men than for women in their organisation, while 13% of employers
stated median hourly pay was higher for women. 8% stated that medianhourly pay was the same for women as for men.
Across all employers who reported, the gender pay gap averaged 12.0%
based on median hourly pay. 8 By comparison, the gap in median hourly pay(excluding overtime) across employers of all sizes was 14.3% at April 2023,
based on estimates from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. 9

6
7
8

9

11

Gov.uk, Download gender pay gap data
Gov.uk, Gender pay gap reporting: changes to enforcement, 23 February 2021
Figures are the mean average of the median pay gap for reporting employers. Other analyses may
provide different figures, particularly where they take a median average across all employers.
Office for National Statistics, Gender pay gap in the UK: 2023, 1 November 2023

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Share of reporting employers where median pay is higher orlower for women than for men% of employers, reporting year 2022/23
Higher for men

Higher for womenMedianbonus pay

Same for women and men

65%Medianhourly pay

18%

79%

17%

13%

8%

Source: Gov.uk, Download gender pay gap data, bonus data only for companies that provided figures

These figures hide very wide variation in the gender pay gaps reported byindividual employers. For over a quarter of reporting employers (27%),
median hourly pay for men was at least 20% higher than for women. 10
The gap in median hourly pay tended to be slightly higher for the largest
employers. The average pay gap in businesses with at least 20,000
employees was 15.4%, compared to 11.9% in employers with 250 to 499
employees.

Gender pay gap by number of employees
Average of median pay, 2022/23
Less than 250

11.6%

250 to 499

11.9%

500 to 999

12.3%1000 to 4999

11.7%5000 to 19,999

13.0%

20,000 or more

15.4%

Source: Gov.uk, Download gender pay gap data, 2022/23

Across all reporting employers, the average proportion of male employees
receiving bonuses was 38.7% in 2022/23. The average proportion of female
employees receiving bonuses around the same at 37.9%. For businesses with

10

12

Gov.uk, Download gender pay gap data

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

at least 20,000 employees, 46.0% of men and 46.1% of women received
bonuses. 11

Reporting requirements
Employers are required to publish the gender pay gaps in their organisation
measured in terms of:••••mean hourly rates of pay
median hourly rates of pay
mean bonus pay
median bonus pay.

Employers also must publish the proportion of male and female employees
who were paid bonus pay, as well as the proportion of employees in each pay
quartile (25% band) who are men and women.
The requirements only apply to businesses with at least 250 employees,
although some smaller employers have reported their gender pay gap on a
voluntary basis. 12 At the start of 2023, UK businesses and other organisations
with at least 250 employees accounted for 17.2 million employee jobs. This
represented around 55% of all employee jobs in the UK. 13

11
12

13

13

Gov.uk, Download gender pay gap data
Reporting data is published on the Gov.uk, Download gender pay gap data [accessed 8 November2023]. Figures include businesses who reported after the deadline.
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Business population estimates for the UK andregions 2022, 5 October 2023 - Table 2

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

3

There is little or no
gender pay gap for
full-time employees
under 40

Age and the gender pay gap

The gender pay gap varies markedly by age. The gap is small or negative forfull-time and part-time employees in their 20s or 30s. Among full-time
employees aged 40 and over, the gap widens considerably.
Nevertheless, since women are more likely than men to work part-time acrossall age groups and since part-time jobs tend to pay less per hour than fulltime jobs, the gender pay gap for all employees in their 30s is still 11.5%. Thisis despite the small full-time and part-time pay gaps.

Gender pay gap by age group
April 2023
Full-time employees

3.0%
18-21

22-29

10.3%

11.2%

40-49

50-59

14.2%

4.7%

30-39

60+

Part-time employees
4.0%

0.9%
-0.8%
18-21

22-29

-3.3%
30-39

-6.2%
40-49

All employees
17.0%

50-59
19.8%

6.9%

60+
18.1%

11.5%
4.8%
0.8%
18-21

22-29

30-39

40-49

50-59

60+

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data,
Table 6.12

One reason for the age differences in the gender pay gap is that factors
affecting women’s employment and earnings opportunities become moreevident when women are in their 30s and 40s. For example, time spent out of
the labour market to care for children or elderly relatives could affect future
earnings when a person returns to work.

14

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

3.1

Motherhood and the gender pay gap
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) finds that most of the gender
pay gaps can be traced to ‘child penalties’, or parenthood. It finds theaverage earnings of men are almost completely unaffected by parenthood,
but women’s earnings fall sharply when they become parents and thenstabilise at a much lower level with little growth.
The IFS finds that seven years after the birth of a first child, women’s earnings
are on average less than half of men’s. The chart below shows that in the
period 1991-2017, the birth of a first child caused a divergence in earnings,
labour force participation and hours worked between men and women.
Earnings, labour force participation and hours worked all fall for women
after the birth of their first child

Note: All charts control for age and year fixed effects. Hours worked in chart C are conditional onparticipation
Source: Institute for Fiscal Studies, Women and men at work, 6 December 2021, Figure 15

The IFS points out that this may underestimate the gap, since women with low
wages before the birth of their first child are less likely (40%) than women onhigh pre-birth wages (70%) to participate in the labour market. This means
the women included in the wages data after the birth of their first child are
more likely to be high earners. 14

14

15

Institute for Fiscal Studies, Women and men at work, 6 December 2021

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Between 1991 and 2015, the pay gap (based on mean hourly earnings 15)
between mothers and fathers was around 10% before the birth of their firstchild, but widens to a gap of around 30% by the time the child is aged 13: 16
Gender pay gap by time to and since birth of first child

Note: Wage gap based on mean hourly pay. The age-adjusted series takes account of the fact that asmall part of the gap is due to age differences: men tend to be slightly older than women when theirfirst child is born. Figures exclude people in the bottom 2% of hourly wages.
Source: IFS BN223, Figure 5

The pay gap
between men andwomen widens in
the years after
having children.

Effect of full-time and part-time work
The gradual widening in the pay gap between mothers and fathers after thearrival of the first child is reflected in a widening gap in the amount of timespent in the workplace. Many mothers leave employment for a time after thebirth of the first child (this is observed for mothers across all education levels
but is particularly pronounced for the lowest-educated) while many others
move from full-time to part-time work. Both effects result in a loss of labour
market experience among mothers which accumulates over time.
According to the IFS, by the time the first child is aged twenty, mothers haveon average been in paid work for three years less than fathers: they havespent ten years less in full-time work, but seven years more in part-time work.

15
16

16

The rest of this paper looks at the gender pay gap based on median hourly pay.
Monica Costa Dias, Robert Joyce and Francesca Parodi, Wage progression and the gender wage
gap: the causal impact of hours of work, IFS Briefing Note BN223, 5 February 2018, Figure 5. Note the
IFS analysis uses data from the British Household Panel Survey for 1991-2008 and the Understanding
Society survey for 2009-2015, rather than the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Therefore
the IFS figures may differ from those presented elsewhere in this paper.

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

The pay gap between mothers and fathers increases by around 21 percentage
points between the birth of the first child and the child’s twentieth birthday,from 8% to around 30% (figures do not sum due to rounding). The IFS
estimates that on average, half of the increase is explained by mothers
spending less time in full-time work.

Part-time
experience leads toless growth inearnings than fulltime experience.
Women are more
likely than men towork part-time.

The amount that men and women work part time tells us more about thewidening of the pay gap following the birth of a first child, than looking at thetime mothers spend out of employment.
According to the IFS, extra years of experience make almost no difference to a
woman’s wages if she works part time. 17
What is more, full-time experience makes a larger difference to wage
progression for graduates than for those with GCSEs or A levels as theirhighest qualification. Thus, the loss of full-time experience explains a larger
part of the pay gap for mothers and fathers who are graduates than it does
for non-graduates.

What else might cause an increase in the pay gap after
having children?
As noted above, time spent in full-time work only explains half of the increasein the pay gap between mothers and fathers during the twenty years following
the birth of their first child. Other factors include women being less likely to
successfully bargain for higher wages within a given firm, and more likely toenter ‘family-friendly’ occupations over high-paying ones. 18
Caring responsibilities may also constrain the length of time that people canspend travelling to work. A wide “gender commuting gap” opens in theyears following the birth of the first child, which evolves over time in a very
similar way to the gender pay gap between mothers and fathers (shown in thechart on page 16). Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that thegender pay gap is caused by a gender commuting gap: it is possible that both
could arise from another factor, such as women needing more flexibility intheir work. 19
The IFS also discuss the potential effect of parental leave and childcare
policies on the gender pay gap among parents. 20

17

18

19

20

17

Monica Costa Dias, Robert Joyce and Francesca Parodi, Wage progression and the gender wage
gap: the causal impact of hours of work, IFS Briefing Note BN223, 5 February 2018 – p16
Research summarised in Monica Costa Dias, Robert Joyce and Francesca Parodi, Wage progression
and the gender wage gap: the causal impact of hours of work, IFS Briefing Note BN223, 5 February
2018 – p3.
Robert Joyce and Agnes Norris Keiller, The 'gender commuting gap' widens considerably in the first
decade after childbirth, IFS Observation, 7 November 2018.
Institute for Fiscal Studies, Women and men at work, 6 December 2021

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

3.2

Pay gap varies by generation and education
The larger gender pay gap for older age groups may also stem fromgenerational differences, in which case we might expect the gap to shrink as
younger generations grow older. For example, the gender pay gap for fulltime employees in their forties was 11% in 2022, down from 24% for people intheir forties in 1997.
Resolution Foundation analysis shows how the gender pay gap at a given age
has reduced for successive generations. For example, the gender pay gap for
people in their twenties was around 16% for the baby boomer generation(born 1946-65) but had shrunk to 5% for millennials (born 1981-2000), as
shown in the chart below (from the Resolution Foundation). 21

There has been alarger increase inaverage educationlevels among
women than among
men over the past
20 years.

The reduction in the gender pay gap between generations is likely to be partly
due to a more highly educated workforce. The IFS found that over threequarters of the fall in the gender pay gap in the 25 years to 2019 was due toincreased educational attainment for women, who are now 5% more likely tohave graduated from university than men.
Despite more women being educated to a higher level, there has been little orno change in the gender pay gap among workers qualified to degree
standard since the early 1990s.
At the same time, the gender pay gap has reduced for workers whose highest
qualifications are GCSEs or A Levels. This means the reduction in the overall

21

18

Laura Gardiner, Is the gender pay gap on the brink of closure for young women today?, Resolution
Foundation blog, 4 January 2017

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The gender pay gap

gender pay gap reflects rising education levels as well as some decrease in
the gap for people who have had less formal education. 22

3.3

Where women work
An IFS report finds that women tend to work in less productive, lower paying
firms, as shown in the chart below. 23
Distribution of men and women by firm productivity

This effect becomes larger when women reach their mid- 30s and 40s.
Women aged 18-34 are approximately 5 percentage points less likely to workfor the top fifth most productive firms than men over the same age. This
increases to approximately 15-20 percentage points for women from the ageof 44. As the IFS report explains, this partly reflects differences in sector, butdoes not explain the entire effect. 24

22
23

24

19

Institute for Fiscal Studies, Women and men at work, 6 December 2021
The chart shows firm productivity measured by GVA (gross value added) per hour worked – ameasure of the amount of output compared with the amount of work done
Robert Joyce and Xiaowei Xu, The gender pay gap: women work for lower-paying firms than men,IFS Observation, 3 April 2019, Figure 1.

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

4

Occupation

The gender pay gap for full-time employees varies widely by occupation. The
gap tends to be smaller for occupation groups where a larger proportion of
employees are women. The gender pay gap fell between 2022 and 2023 for all
occupational groupings.
There is a large gender pay gap in skilled trades occupations and process,plant and machine operatives. Men comprised around 91% of full-time
employees in these occupations. 25 The gap is smaller among administrativeand secretarial roles and caring, leisure and other service occupations, where
women comprised over 65% of full-time employees.
The gender pay gap is lowest in sales and customer service occupations at
1.6% for full-time work in April 2023. A similar number of men and women are
employed full-time in these occupations. 26

Higher paying
occupations

Lower paying
occupations

Full-time gender pay gap by occupation
April 2023
Managers, directors, senior officials% who arewomen:
34%

Professional occupations

44%

Associate professional and technical

44%

Skilled trades

9%

Administrative and secretarial

67%

Process, plant, machine operatives

12%

Caring, leisure and other services

72%

Sales and customer service

51%

Elementary occupations

29%
0%

5%

10%

15%

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data, Table 2.12

For part-time employees, the gender pay gap is relatively small or negative
except for professional occupations and process, plant and machine
operatives occupations.

25
26

20

ONS, Annual Population Survey, year to June 2021
ONS, UK Labour Market, October 2018, Table EMP04 (not seasonally adjusted)

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Part-time gender pay gap by occupation
Higher paying
occupations

April 2023

% who arewomen:

Managers, directors, senior officials

69%

Professional occupations

82%

Associate professional and technical

79%

Skilled trades

40%

Administrative and secretarial

91%

Process, plant, machine operatives

24%

Caring, leisure and other services

85%

Sales and customer service

72%

Elementary occupations

66%

Lower paying
occupations

-4%

-2%

0%

2%

4%

6%

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data, Table 2.12

The ONS provides gender pay gaps for more detailed occupations in its
release Gender pay gap in the UK: 2023.

Occupational segregation
Even if men and women working in the same role are paid the same on
average, a gender pay gap could still arise if women are concentrated inthose occupations which pay less. This is sometimes known as occupationalsegregation. But within each of the broad occupation groups listed above,
there is a diverse range of roles: professional occupations encompass bothsolicitors and midwives; skilled trades include both plumbers and chefs.
Average earnings may vary considerably across roles contained within thesame occupation group.
Therefore, the charts below use a more finely-grained classification ofoccupations (around 350 occupations in all). 27 We group occupations into
four categories:
•

•

27

21

Low-paying occupations are defined as those where median hourly pay
is less than the 25th percentile of the overall distribution, which was£12.00 in 2023 (the 25th percentile is the point at which 25% of people
earn less, and 75% earn more).
Lower middle occupations are those with median hourly pay between
the 25th percentile and median of the overall distribution, so between£12.00 and £15.83.

Analysis is based on occupations as listed in the ONS Standard Occupational Classification, 4 digit
codes.

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

A higher share ofwomen than men
are employed in
low-paying
occupations, while
men are moreconcentrated inhigh-paying roles.

Higher middle occupations are those with median hourly pay between
the median and 75th percentile of the overall distribution, so between£15.83 and £23.06.
High-paying occupations are those with median hourly pay above the75th percentile of the overall distribution, so above £23.06.

••

Note the thresholds for high and low pay used here differ from otheranalyses. 28
Looking at the proportion of male and female employees in each group, ouranalysis suggests that a higher share of women than men are employed in
the lowest-paying occupations: 24% of women compared to 14% of men.
The reverse was true for high-paying occupations, which employed 18% offemale employees but 26% of male employees: 29

Men and women working in high- and low-paying occupations
All employees, July 2022 to June 2023
Low-paying

Women

Men

Lower middle

24%

Higher middle

35%

14%

33%

High-paying

23%

26%

18%

26%

Note: Pay data missing for small number of occupations

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Population Survey, July 2022 to June 2023, via Nomis and Annual Survey of Hours andEarnings, Table 14.6a

To repeat this analysis for full-time employees, the thresholds are modified toreflect the full-time pay distribution, where the 25th percentile is £13.19 and the75th is £24.65. Women working full-time are still more likely to be employed in
low-paying occupations and less likely to be employed in high-paying
occupations than men working full-time.

28

29

22

For example, a common threshold for low pay is two-thirds of median earnings, as used in ONS, Low
and high pay in the UK: 2023, 1 November 2023. The above thresholds are used in this analysis
because it means the employee population is evenly spread across the four pay groups.
This does not mean that 27% of female employees earned below the 25th percentile of the
distribution; rather, 27% worked in occupations where median pay was below this threshold.

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Men and women working in high and low-paying full-time occupations
Full-time employees, July 2022 to June 2023
Low-paying

Women

Men

Lower middle

26%

29%

20%

32%

Higher middle

High-paying

26%

24%

19%

24%

Note: Occupation groups are defined based on the full-time pay distribution so the groups differ from those used in the "All employees" chart.
Note: Pay data missing for small number of occupations

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Population Survey, July 2022 to June 2023, via Nomis and Annual Survey of Hours andEarnings, Table 14.6a

However, the proportions of men and women in low- and high-paying
occupations are more similar among full-time employees than when we
looked at full-time and part-time employees together. This is because mostpart-time roles are found in lower-paying occupations, and many more
women than men are employed part-time.

How much do occupational differences contribute to
the gender pay gap?
ONS analysis foundthat 23% of thegender pay gap
could be explainedby occupational
differences between
women and men.

Analysis by the Office for National Statistics based on 2017 data found thatoccupational differences explained around 23% of the gender pay gap. 30
As well as pay differences between occupations, there may remain
substantial differences in average pay for men and women within certain
occupations. Such differences could arise if a higher share of men are insenior roles than women (or vice versa, in which case we would expect anegative pay gap) or may reflect the amount of experience employees have ina particular role.

30

23

Anna Ardanaz-Badia and Joshua Rawlings, Understanding the gender pay gap in the UK, Office for
National Statistics, 17 January 2018

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

5

Industry

There is wide variation in the gender pay gap between industries, althoughpeople working in the same industry may do very different kinds of work.
Some of the pay gap in an industry may be explained by differences in thekind of roles undertaken by men and women.
For full-time employees, the gender pay gap is largest in financial andinsurance activities (22.7%).
The industries with the smallest pay gaps for full-time employees aretransportation and storage (2.3%) and accommodation and food services(3.6%). 31

Full-time gender pay gap by industry
April 2023

% who are women:
Financial and insurance

43%

Professional, scientific and technical

41%

Manufacturing

21%

Information and communication
Construction

32%
11%

Education

60%

Health and social work72%

All employees

39%

Other services

52%

Wholesale and retail

35%

Public administration and defence

43%

Arts, entertainment and recreation

43%

Administrative and support services

37%

Real estate46%

Accommodation and food services

46%

Transportation and storage

21%
0%

10%

20%

30%

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data,
Table 4.12

31

24

Percentage figures in industry charts show the proportion of employee jobs in each sector that were
held by women at Q2 2023, based on the ONS Workforce Jobs series (accessed via Nomis).

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

In many sectors, the pay gap for part-time employees is small or negative.
The part-time pay gap is largest in the education sector at 24.6%, as shownin the chart below.
Counterintuitively, the overall pay gap for part-time employees is smaller
than the part-time pay gap in most of the industry sectors in the chart. This isbecause there is a higher concentration of female part-time employees thanmen in sectors with higher than average pay for part-time employees (even if
men working part-time in those sectors tend to earn more): for example,
education and health and social work.

Part-time gender pay gap by industry
April 2023

% who arewomen:
Education

81%

Financial and insurance

80%

Professional, scientific and technical65%

Information and communication

54%

Health and social work

86%

Transportation and storage

47%

Public administration and defence

82%

Manufacturing

59%

Wholesale and retail66%

Accommodation and food services

60%

Real estate

57%

Other services

76%

Arts, entertainment and recreation

60%

Administrative and support services

59%

All employees

69%
51%

Construction
-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data,
Table 4.12

25

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

6

Public and private sector

In April 2023, the gender pay gap for full-time employees was 9.6% in the
public sector and 12.8% in the private sector.
Both these figures are higher than the 7.7% gender pay gap for all full-time
employees. This is because women make up a higher share of employees in
the public sector than in the private sector, and average earnings tend to behigher in the public sector.

Gender pay gap in the public and private sector
April 2023

Public, full-time
Private, full-time
Public, part-time
Private, part-time -1.1%% who are women:

9.6%

57%
12.8%
13.3%

34%
85%
67%

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data,
Table 13.12

For part-time employees, there is a negligible gender pay gap in the private
sector (-1.1%), which contrasts with a large part-time gender pay gap in the
public sector (13.3%).
The full-time gender pay gap fell in both the public and private sectors from1997 to the mid-2000s. However, while the private sector pay gap has mostly
continued to fall, the public sector pay gap has, if anything, widened slightly
overall.

26

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Gender pay gap in the public and private sector
Full-time employees, 1997-2023
35%
30%
25%
20%

Private sector

15%
10%
5%

Public sector0%1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023
Source: Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings time series of
selected estimates – Table 927

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

7

Region and country

Gender pay data for
all countries andregions areprovided in datatables publishedalongside thispaper.

The gender pay gap for full-time employees was negative in Northern Ireland
as of April 2023, at -3.5%. It was positive in all other regions and countries of
the UK, ranging from 1.7% in Scotland to 12.9% in the South East. (Note theseestimates are based on where people work, rather than where they live.) 32
Part of the explanation for the negative full-time pay gap in Northern Irelandis the higher proportion of public sector jobs than in the rest of the UK. There
are more women employed in the public sector and these jobs tend to behigher paid, in general, than in the private sector.

Gender pay gap for full-time employees
By country and region of workplace, April 2023
South East

12.9%

London11.9%

East Midlands

11.9%

South West

10.5%

Yorks & Humber

10.5%West Midlands

9.8%

East

9.7%

North West

7.8%

United Kingdom

7.7%

North East

7.0%

Wales

5.6%

ScotlandNorthern Ireland

1.7%
-3.5%

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data,
Table 7.12

For part-time employees there is a negative gender pay gap in every country
and region of the UK.

32

28

Office for National Statistics, Gender Pay Gap data, Nov 2021

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Gender pay gap for part-time employees
By country and region of workplace, April 2023
Yorks & Humber-0.6%

East Midlands-0.9%South East

-0.9%

Northern Ireland-1.7%

South West

-2.3%

North West

-3.0%

United Kingdom

-3.3%

East

-3.6%

North East

-3.8%

Wales

-5.4%

West Midlands-6.6%

London-10.0%

Scotland-10.0%

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings – Gender pay gap data,
Table 7.12

29

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

8Higher-paid and lower-paid employees

So far in this briefing, we have looked at the pay gap between men andwomen at the middle of the pay distributions. We can also look at the pay gap
between men and women who are relatively high-paid compared to othermale or female employees, and those who are relatively low-paid. The gender
pay gap is larger among high-paid workers than it is among low-paid
workers.

Full-time employees
At April 2023, to be in the highest-paid 10% of female full-time employees
required hourly earnings greater than £30.92 (excluding overtime). To be in
the highest-paid 10% of male full-time employees required hourly earnings
greater than £36.30. This gives a gender pay gap of 14.8% at the 90th
percentile of the pay distribution (the point at which 10% of people earnmore and 90% earn less). 33 This disparity becomes more pronounced in thevery highest earners, the IFS found that by the mid 2010s, only 11% of theearners in the top 0.1% in the UK were women. 34
At the bottom end of the distribution, an employee would have had to earn
less than £11.11 an hour to be in the lowest-paid 10% of female full-time
employees and less than £11.47 to be in the lowest-paid 10% of men. This
gives a gender pay gap of 3.1% at the 10th percentile of the pay distribution(the point where 90% of people earn more and 10% earn less). 35
The gender pay gap at the bottom and middle of the full-time earnings
distribution has decreased since 1997. For higher earners, the gap has beenslower to close:

33
34
35

30

Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, via NOMISInstitute for Fiscal Studies, The characteristics and incomes of the top 1%, 6 December 2021
Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, via NOMIS

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gap

Gender pay gap across the earnings distribution
Full-time employees, 1997-2023
30%
25%
90th percentile

20%
15%

Median10%
5%10th percentile0%1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023
Dashed lines indicate breaks in the series in 2004, 2006 and 2011.

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, via NOMIS

Part-time employees
Turning to part-time employees, a different picture emerges. Median pay forpart-time employees is higher for women than for men. However, the highestpaid male part-time employees tend to earn more than the highest-paid
female part-time employees, so that there is a substantial gender pay gap at
the 90th percentile of the pay distribution.
As the chart shows, the estimated gap at the 90th percentile fluctuates fromyear to year. Some of this volatility is likely to arise from survey error rather
than genuine changes in the gap.

Gender pay gap across the earnings distribution
Part-time employees, 1997-2023
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
1997

90th percentile

10th percentile
Median
2004

2011

2018

Dashed lines indicate breaks in the series in 2004, 2006, 2011 and 2021

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, via NOMIS

From 2007 to 2015, the 10th percentile of the male and female part-time
earnings distributions was equal or very similar to the adult rate of the
National Minimum Wage for people aged 21 and over (previously 22 and31

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

The gender pay gapover). This meant there was no gender pay gap among the lowest-paid parttime employees.
However, the gap turned negative in 2016 following the introduction of the
National Living Wage, a higher minimum wage for people aged 25 and over.
From 2016 to 2019, the 10th percentile of women’s part-time earnings was the
National Living Wage, while the 10th percentile of men’s part-time earnings
was closer to the National Minimum Wage rate for people aged 21-24. This
reflects the different profile of men and women working part-time. Youngpeople on the minimum wage make up a larger share of men employed parttime than women employed part-time. Among those aged 25 and over, men
are much more likely to be working full-time.
In 2020 and 2021, the 10th percentiles were affected by the Coronavirus Job
Retention Scheme, under which some people were furloughed on reduced
pay.

32

Commons Library Research Briefing, 8 January 2024

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